Suspect charged with killing UnitedHealthcare CEO as an act of terrorism

NEW YORK — The man accused of killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare has been charged with the killing as an act of terrorism, prosecutors said Tuesday as they worked to bring him to trial in New York from a Pennsylvania prison.

Luigi Nicolas Mangione has already been charged in the Dec. 4 murder of Brian Thompson, but the terrorism charges are new.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said Thompson’s death on a street in midtown Manhattan “was a murder intended to cause terror. And we saw that reaction.”

Mangione’s New York attorney, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, declined to comment.

Thompson, 50, was shot as he walked to a hotel where Minnesota-based UnitedHealthcare, the largest health insurer in the United States, was holding an investor conference.

The killing sparked an outpouring of resentment against America’s health insurance companies, as Americans shared stories online and elsewhere of being denied coverage, left in limbo because doctors and insurance companies disagreed, and stuck with hefty bills.

The shooting also rattled senior staff, as “wanted” posters appeared on the streets of New York with the names and faces of other health care executives, and some social media users praised Mangione’s act as payback.

New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said Tuesday that “any attempt to justify this is despicable, reckless and offensive to our deeply held principles of justice.”

Terrorist acts

A New York law passed after the 9/11 attacks allows prosecutors to charge crimes as acts of terrorism if they “are intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, to influence the policy of a governmental unit by intimidation or coercion, and to influence the conduct of a governmental unit by killing, attempting or kidnapping”.

Prosecutors have applied the statute to a variety of contexts. Some related to international extremism, but the law was first used against a Bronx gang member after a 2002 shooting spree that killed a 10-year-old girl and paralyzed a man at a baptism. The state’s highest court later ruled that the conduct did not constitute terrorism, and a retrial led to a conviction on other charges.

Bragg noted that Thompson’s killing occurred early on a weekday in an area frequented by commuters, businessmen and tourists.

“This was a frightening, well-planned, targeted killing designed to shock, attract attention and intimidate,” the district attorney said.

After days of intense police searches and publicity, Mangione was spotted on December 9 at a McDonald’s in Altoona, Pennsylvania and arrested. New York police officials said Mangione was carrying the gun used to kill Thompson, a passport and various fake IDs, including one the suspect in the killing had shown to check into a New York hostel.

A 26-year-old man was charged with counterfeiting weapons in Pennsylvania and was placed on bail. His attorney from Pennsylvania questioned the evidence of the forgery charge and the legal basis of the gun charge. The lawyer also said Mangione will fight extradition to New York.

Bragg noted that Mangione has two court hearings scheduled for Thursday in Pennsylvania, including an extradition hearing.

Hours after his arrest, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office filed charges charging him with murder and other crimes. The indictment is based on these documents.

Anger at the health care system

The researchers’ working theory is that Mangione, an Ivy League computer science graduate from a prominent Maryland family, was driven by anger at the US health care system. A law enforcement bulletin obtained by The Associated Press last week said he was carrying a handwritten letter at the time of his arrest that called health insurance companies “parasitic” and complained about corporate greed.

Mangione has written repeatedly on social media about how spinal surgery last year eased his chronic back pain, encouraging people with similar conditions to speak up for themselves if they’ve been told they just have to live with it.

In a post on Reddit in late April, he advised a person with a back problem to seek a second opinion from surgeons and, if necessary, to say that the pain is making it impossible to work.

“We live in a capitalist society,” Mangione wrote. “I’ve found that the medical industry reacts to these keywords much more strongly than you do when describing excruciating pain and how it affects your quality of life.”

According to the insurer, he was never a customer of UnitedHealthcare.

In recent months, Mangione has apparently cut himself off from family and close friends. His family reported him missing in San Francisco in November.

After San Francisco authorities received a tip from their New York counterparts, investigators spoke with Mangione’s mother in San Francisco on the evening of December 7. In that interview, “she said it might be something she could see him doing,” New York Police Department Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenney said Tuesday.

Before detectives could get to the bottom of that investigation, Mangione was arrested, Kenney said.

In a statement, Mangione’s relatives said they were “shocked and devastated” by his arrest.

Thompson, who grew up on a farm in Iowa, trained as an accountant. A married father of two high school students, he worked for giant UnitedHealth Group for 20 years and became CEO of its insurance division in 2021.

JAKE OFFENHARTZ and JENNIFER PELTZ, Associated Press

Associated Press writer Michael R. Sisak contributed.